Andrewes, the exemplar of primitive sanctity, to that apostolical prelate, who, during the last century, the darkest, dreariest period of our Church, still held fast with unchanging confidence to the rock of primitive truth; yea, further, our Church herself has authoritatively1 confirmed their testimony by enjoining her preachers in the exegesis of Holy Scripture to follow the guidance and interpretation of the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops.

REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

Science in Theology: Sermons preached in S. Mary's, Oxford, before the University. By ADAM S. FARRAR, M.A. London: Murray. 1859.

WHEN we took up this volume, we expected to see a regular course of sermons, following consecutively the subject, and working out the matter to a definite conclusion. There is some promise of this in the first three sermons: No. 4 breaks into the arrangement, which is never resumed. The rest follow without any consecutive order, or even connection with each other-mere disjecta membra, flung together any way, without regard even for the Church's order of seasons. The really interesting sermon is the fourth, containing a history of Jewish sacred literature in the middle ages: it is historical rather than scientific.

As regards "theology," the writer is essentially devoid of all "science.' In speaking of the doctrine of the Trinity, he approaches the very borders of heresy; and nothing can be more unsatisfactory than his views concerning the purpose of miracles. But not even as miscellaneous sermons could we estimate them at all highly.

Six Sermons on the Events of Holy Week, by the Rev. W. MATUrin, (J. H. Parker,) has reached us too late to notice, and almost too late, we fear, for the season. The author is one of the few orthodox Clergy of Ireland.

If a mind free from prejudice and passion is, as has been commonly supposed, a qualification indispensable to a commentator, then we may certainly say, no one could be found less fitted for such an office than LANCELOT SHADWELL, Esq., late Fellow of S. John's College, Cambridge, who has just put forth a new Translation of S. Matthew's Gospel with Notes and Introduction, &c., (Macmillan). We are no apologists, certainly, for Dean Alford; but neither can we offer any apology for the application to him by Mr. Shadwell of such language as follows:-" It is difficult to imagine how Alford could have been induced to undertake such a work (as his Greek Testament). For he must have known

1 Canon of 1571.

when he began that he knew nothing at all about the matter. His ignorance of Greek shows itself whenever he speaks. Alford was formerly minister of Quebec Chapel, London; and here he acquired the reputation of a popular preacher, and attracted numerous hearers, and this seems to have turned his head." But Dean Alford is small game. The Athanasian Creed is said to be " highly reprehensible;" "the Nicene Creed also is not free from error;" yea, and "there is no limit to the folly of the Holy Catholic Church." What shall we say of a man who writes in this strain, and who would disprove the tenet of the perpetual Virginity of S. Mary, by the statement of the Evangelist, that Joseph "took the young Child and His Mother by night ?" What can we say but that the writings of such a man are not entitled to serious review.

It is interesting to observe how in one town and in one diocese after another, new and enlarged views of Christian truth are being set before people. The immediate result is, generally, the arousing of opposition: for the end we must be content to wait. The last scene where this now familiar drama has been enacted, appears to be Barnstaple, where the Rev. BOURCHIER WREY SAVILE offended the Protestant prejudices of the worthy burgesses, by a very moderate sermon upon the position and claims of the English Church. The sermon has now been published by Mr. Parker, of Oxford, under the title of Church Principles.

The Cross in Sweden will be to many one of the most attractive of Mr. Parker's very successful series. The scene of action is entirely new, and it opens out an interesting field of research to those who love to trace out the footsteps of the Church to her farthest limits. This tale is pleasantly written, but we are doubtful whether the autobiographical form adopted in this and other numbers is suitable to the object of the series. No one is of course expected to believe that they are really translations. But in spite of the best endeavours of the author, these early Christians are found enunciating ideas of a singularly modern stamp which do not harmonise well with the date of the events recorded.

It is not too much to say, that Church Colouring, by the Rev. R. J. SPRANGER, (Masters,) is a wonderful sermon, wonderful in the extent of its penetration into the hidden mysteries of GOD, and wonderful in the practical application it makes of them to the most ordinary duties of Christian life. It gives a key to the typical interpretation of the outward adorning of the first Temple, which is the representative of the far brighter glory of the Temple not made with hands, His Body, the Church. We are much mistaken if this sermon does not convey to most persons a new insight into this comprehensive subject; and we should be very glad if we could see from the same hand a Commentary on those books of Holy Scripture which refer to the building of the Temple under Divine direction.

We hope in our next to give a full notice of the Cottage Commentary on S. Matthew. At the present we will only say that it seems to us a complete success.

LEADING PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION.

Leaders of the Reformation. Luther, Calvin, Latimer, Knox. By JOHN TULLOCH, D.D., Principal, and Primarius Professor of Theology, S. Mary's College, S. Andrew's. Edinburgh and London: Blackwoods.

THE perusal of these popular and clever sketches reminds us, as we are reminded over and over again, that we are still compelled to number among the desiderata of our libraries a good Catholic Apology for the Reformation of the Church of England. Dr. Tulloch writes with great fairness, and has made a judicious use of the facts which he has culled from Foxe, D'Aubigné, and Mr. Froude's volumes; but, after all, he exhibits another example of the impossibility that any Presbyterian or any nominal Churchman whose principles are almost identical with those of Presbyterianism should be able to write a comprehensive and true sketch of a change which professed to be carried out on a basis of principle as antagonistic, at the least, to Presbyterianism as to Rome. The overlying strata of subsequent events have, moreover, so hidden the original form of that great cataclysm that its true outline can only be found by an examination of the data belonging to the period in which it was produced, and of such data it is reasonable to give the first place in importance and authority to official or otherwise responsible documents. But the tendency of the day is to write history in the form of anecdote; to take up the popular theory of any period, and overlay it with a multitude of personal details which tell us next to nothing of real history; or to reproduce the biography of some individual whose name has become familiar to the ear from certain quite insignificant causes, and make 66 a representative man "out of one who has no claims whatever to be handed about in that character. Dr. Tulloch has fallen into this mistake in setting Latimer by the side of Luther, Calvin, and Knox, and taking him for the representative of our English Reformation in the same degree as the others are respectively of the German, Swiss, and Scotch. One might as well take Dr. Sacheverel as the representative of the Church in Queen Anne's days; or Dr. Hugh M'Neile, Mr. Hugh Stowell, or Mr. Hugh Allen, or any other Irish Hugo; as those whose leadership makes them most fit for historic niches in our own. Latimer was a popular preacher, (chiefly because he was very eccentric and violent); he took his death bravely, and he gave his party a very useful mot in his last speech. This is almost all that need be said of him in a history of the Reformation which aims at representing things and men in their proper proportion; the exact measure of his power VOL. XXII.-MAY, 1860.

2 c

and influence on his generation being probably about the same as that of the fluent and popular revivalist preachers who are at present Leaders of the Reformation" in Dr. Tulloch's northern community. Perhaps the chief temptation which our author had to place his hero in such a position lay in the fact that no one ever thought of doing it before; Latimer's life having so little independent interest that even Protestant authors and publishers have not thought it worth the trouble of compiling and the expense of publishing. However, we have no quarrel with Dr. Tulloch. He has given his hearers and readers as fair and good a résumé of Reformation history as can be expected from such quarters; and though he has entirely failed in making his notice of Latimer consistent with the general title of his book, he has produced an essay on Latimer's times which is likely to be very useful among Presbyterian readers. We can speak with equal praise of the other portions of his volume, though they possess less immediate interest for an English churchman.

The fact is that a just view of the Reformation will not permit us to single out any individual as possessing so much influence over his times, and taking so prominent a place among his contemporaries, that he is entitled to be called the leader of the move.. ment. Cranmer, who is often taken as the representative man of the English Reformation, is certainly less deserving of such a conspicuous place than Ridley. In a great position, the Archbishop could hardly fail to have some of the marks of greatness; but it was accident, not right, that gave him the position he held; and it is the accident of his position rather than any intellectual, much less any moral, power possessed by him which has made his name so famous in the history of his times. Ridley, on the other hand, was a man of much ability and great theological learning; and had he been Archbishop of Canterbury instead of Cranmer, it is probable that the course of the Reformation would have been characterised by much more firmness, and perhaps by a more definite theology, though it may be doubted whether the latter would have been thoroughly orthodox.

But a very few words are sufficient in commemorating the "Leaders of the Reformation," so far as England was concerned; for there really were none. The Reformation in England was not the creature of any one individual's brain in its origin, or of any one man's policy in its progress. It was not the creature of public opinion either; for public opinion often tolerates the most gross abuses, religious, political, and social, until it is influenced by some cause outside of itself, which turns it in another direction: and there is much evidence to show that public opinion was pretty well satisfied with things as they were before the Reformation; very gradually veering round to a direction which supported things as they were made afterwards. There are, in fact, strong currents

which arise from unseen causes, and carry whole nations, rulers, and people alike in their course; and it is to one of these psychical phenomena, and not to public opinion or any human leader, that the progress of the Reformation must be traced. Who can tell where they begin, or how? All one can conclude about them is that they owe their origin to those powers which are able to act with imperceptible yet mighty energy upon whole masses of minds, and to turn them by multitudes towards good or evil, according as it is GOD or the Enemy of GOD whose will is the spring of action. And amid all the evil with which the Enemy caused the English Reformiation to be adulterated, there is ample reason to believe that the movement was spontaneous and unavoidable, and in the general course of its progress was obeying the guidance of God's providential order.

In support of this view we would call attention to the fact that the Reformation of the Church of England seems to have been almost entirely unaffected by the influence of the changes effected under the leaders Luther, Calvin, and Knox, of whom Dr. Tulloch discourses. In spite of attempts, both from without and within the Church, as well abroad as at home, to bring those influences to bear upon the Universities and the country in general, there is hardly a trace of them to be found in the Prayer Book, which is our only dogmatic standard; and even in the Thirty-nine Articles, where, if anywhere, one would have expected to find the influence shown, the marks are more seeming than real. It has been attempted indeed to prove that, because some portions, and after all very unimportant portions-chiefly the Exhortations-of the Prayer Book, were derived from the continental reformers, therefore their influence was at work throughout; but the whole substance of the services which it contains are evidence to the contrary. It has been contended too, over and over again, that the Articles were drawn up in a decidedly Calvinistic sense; but as our theological knowledge has improved we have seen how untrue this is, and how often these very Articles made their way in direct opposition to Calvinistic influences, even when brought to bear upon them in the highest quarters. There is something very remarkable too in the absence of any name whatever as an authority in the official documents which accompany the English Prayer Book and Bible. So far from looking up to Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, or any one else as the Father of the Reformation, the individuals might never have lived at all for anything that appears in those documents. If the English Reformation had owed anything to the foreign Reformers, common gratitude would have instinctively brought up some allusion to them, and yet there is no allusion to them even in so discursive a production as the Preface to the Bible; while that of the Prayer-Book distinctly asserts the leading principle of its reconstruction to have been a reference to antiquity, as indeed the Preface to the Bible also asserts in refer